With the large-scale counterattack of the Dashun army in Shanxi and Henan, the Qing army began to transfer all the troops that could and could not be fought to that side one after another, and at the same time sent people to contact the Hui people in Qinghai and Gansu who were fighting fiercely with the Dashun army, and made an appointment to destroy Li Chuang, pinning down a large number of the main forces of the Shun army. In the seventh month of the lunar calendar, more than 30,000 Qing troops from the Bahana and Shitingzhu Divisions, who were originally wandering in Jinan, were transferred westward to Huaiqing Mansion and joined the Qing troops of the Gushan Ezhen Yechen Division. This Qing army avoided the northern part of Shanxi, where Dashun was heavily armed, and ignored the partial divisions of the Dashun army that feinted in Hebei and the northeastern and western parts of Shandong, and attacked Zezhou and Lu'an from Henan, intending to approach Taiyuan from south to north.

At the end of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the situation in northern Shanxi underwent major changes. The Tang Tong Department of the Shun army, which was stationed in Baode, Qilan and other places, suddenly surrendered to the Qing and attacked the rear camp of the Shun army in Fugu, and the Shun army was caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. Tang Tong also exchanged voices with the Qing troops in Datong and Ningwu, and the momentum was extremely shocking.

In September, Li Guo, who had returned from Datong City before, led his troops to attack Datong, Ningwu and Baode garrisoned by the Qing army in two ways. At the end of this month, after receiving a large number of reinforcements from the Eight Banners Army, the Ye Chen Department of the Qing Army on the South Road conquered Zezhou and Lu'an, and then reached the city of Taiyuan. In order to alleviate the pressure on the Taiyuan Dashun army, the Dashun army in southern Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places began to gather heavy troops to attack the flank of the Qing army. At the same time, the local gentry in Shanxi raised troops to rebel in response to the Qing army, and the situation of the Shun army was greatly damaged.

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On October 15, 1644, in the wharf of Yantai Port, there were many trees. More than a dozen large ships, which are rarely seen on the ground in the Far East, gathered here. Among them were seven steam sailing ships, two merchant ships, two armed transports, and two frigate gunboats. At the beginning of the month. Two steam engine sailing ships were again sent from the mainland. The ship was accompanied by the 105th Company of the Army, the 3rd Battalion of the New Army of the Eight Banners, some reinforcements (100 musketeers + 50 gunners + 200 samurai of the Eight Banners), 50 gendarmes, more than 350 Polish mercenaries, eight Andalusian horses, and a large amount of weapons and ammunition.

About this 105th company of the army, it is a unit that has just been established in South Africa not long ago. Now that the local forces are really tight, there are not enough troops to go to the Far East for the time being, so the military headquarters divided the 5th Company (formerly the 104th Company) of the South African Army into two, the 5th Company and the 105th Company, respectively, and then supplemented a large number of soldiers from the former River Security Regiment to fill the gap. The 105th Company was established and trained for less than two months. He immediately boarded a passing transport ship and headed for the East. The commander of the company, Lieutenant Li Renjun, was a middle school student before the crossing, and was a staff officer of the War Department before, and later participated in several domestic bandit warfare, and also fought with the Xhosa people in South Africa for a while, and after a little experience, he served as the commander of the newly formed 105th Company. In addition, Second Lieutenant Sun Shengjun served as the deputy commander of the company, and also came to Yantai.

The arrival of them and a new batch of reinforcements has greatly strengthened the military strength on the east bank of Yantai Fort, as of today. There are 870 army infantry, 231 artillery, 2,422 people in three battalions of the Eight Banners New Army, 3,000 people in 12 squadrons of the Forward Army, and 353 Polish mercenaries, a total of 6,876 people. Furthermore. There are more than 2,500 military men in Yantai Fort, 50 new gendarmes in Heishui Port, more than 230 black soldiers in Dabo, more than 40 naval sailors in Yuanbo Port, plus more than 60 patrol officers in the three police stations set up, the total strength is still considerable.

At this time, the population of Yantai and other places also reached an unprecedented 48,000 people, and if you add the army on the east coast, the number is close to 55,000. There are so many people who can't be fed! At present, the grain harvest in Sakhalin, Yantai and other places has long been completed, and after the consumption of these times, there are about 1,800 tons left. Fortunately, in September, Mo Ming once led the army to Laizhou, Qingzhou and other places, and took advantage of the spring wheat harvest to forcibly collect some grain and grass from the local gentry, making the grain storage reach about 2,300 tons. In addition, there are about 1,400 tons of salmon, more than 1,800 tons of saury, more than 2,400 tons of Far Eastern sardines, and more than 300 tons of mackerel, squid, crabs, sea cucumbers and other groceries in the ice cellar of Heishui Port. However, this year's fishing flood is about to pass, and the four fishing boats that are still floating at sea are afraid that the output will be quite limited in the next period of time, that is to say, the people on the east coast will rely on the existing grain to last until July and August next year, and a considerable part of the grain will have to be left to grow grain.

This food pressure is not ordinary! The shortfall is expected to be more than 3,000 tons, and this deficit is irreducible. Because as the situation in Shandong becomes more and more chaotic, the grain output of the entire Shandong is currently declining rapidly from a macro point of view, which means that even if the people on the east coast go out to collect grain, the amount of grain collected will be very limited.

To tell the truth, after the Shun army distributed the landlords' land to the people, Shandong's land planting area rose rapidly, and if it can hold out until the autumn harvest, maybe this year will be a bumper harvest year. However, the Shun army was defeated too quickly, and it was only about two months before it had to retreat under the counterattack of the landlords' armed forces. However, many ordinary people who had been allocated land to the landlords and were happily cultivating the land were expelled or even killed by the landlords, and many were forced to flee or simply become bandits, and the production order that had just improved was once again destroyed.

However, the power vacuum caused by the retreat of the Shun army was not quickly and effectively filled by the Qing court, and at present, there are constant beacons in various parts of Shandong, and there are bandits, bandits, and hungry people rising up under the banner of Li Chuang. Moreover, Guo Sheng announced in Shandong that he would be exempted from money and grain for three years, and the Qing court recruited Wang Aoyong, Fang Dayou and others to compete for the hearts of the people, and they also shouted the slogan of exempting money and grain. But later, Wang and Fang found that it was not possible to go on like this, and they had no money to recruit and raise soldiers.

Fang Dayou once played "Today, there are no people, no officials, no soldiers, and there is always no pay", which shows his embarrassment. Later, with the establishment of the general army of the two towns of Jiaozhou and Yizhou of the Qing army, Fang Dayou wanted to collect some money and grain to support the green battalion troops recruited by Ke Yongsheng and others: "Except for the wasteland, those who are mature will be levied a point." Unexpectedly, the people who had just seen that the situation had calmed down a little and returned from the "thieves' nest", as soon as they heard that the Qing court was going to start collecting taxes, immediately "turned their arms back" and returned to the mountains to become bandits, which made the two appeasement officials of the Qing court in Shandong extremely embarrassed.

We can basically see from this that at present, there are several forces in Shandong, the poorest should be those remnants of the Shun army and local bandits, followed by the Qing court, and the people on the east coast are relatively wealthy after vigorously organizing production and fishing operations, which has to be said to be ironic. Although the landlords and gentry in Qingzhou, Dongchang, Jinan, and Yanzhou should still have a lot of grain, they are far away from the activity areas of the people on the east coast, and they can't reach it, so the people on the east coast actually have to rely on their own grain reserves to survive the next year.

In order to survive the next year, reducing the population of Yantai and Heishui has become a top priority. It just so happened that the two new steam engine sailing ships from the mainland had arrived, and after spending seven or eight days to complete the maintenance, the climate also changed a little, and the north wind on the sea gradually became the mainstream, so the operation of transporting migrants to the port of Jinshan in Australia could also begin.

This is the case with the seven steam engine sailing ships in front of them, they have loaded 3,000 people in Heishui Port, 1,500 people in Yuanbo Port, 1,500 people in Dabo Port, and then loaded the last 1,000 people on Kongtong Island. The weather in late October is perfect for sailing, not only do typhoons and other bad weather disappear without a trace, but the journey south until the equator reaches the central part of Australia's east coast is a tailwind, and this slow sailing fleet may only take more than 20 days to reach its destination, Jinshan Port. Coupled with the fact that the weather is now cooler, the mortality rate should be tolerable.

On the dock, Mo Ming shook Li Yi's right hand tightly, and said with a smile: "Your kid is going back to his hometown to enjoy happiness, are you afraid that your wife and little lover will run away with someone?" Ha Lu Ha. ”

"They dare?!" Li Yi also smiled and said, "Don't talk about me, I heard that during the period before and after you went to Laizhou and Qingzhou a while ago, you had a lot of fun playing with the designer named Lola at the Heishui Ship Repair Station." I heard that someone's father died indirectly at your hands, your kid is not small, and his taste is quite heavy, aren't you afraid that one day someone will click with scissors? ”

"Huh." Mo Ming smiled shamelessly, then patted Li Yi's shoulder hard, and said, "I don't know when Lu Dao will be next time we meet." When you arrive in Australia, you won't be able to leave until May anyway, so help me keep an eye on it over there, where nominally I'm in charge, but in fact, you also know that the road is laissez-faire. The latest report brought to me by two ships at the beginning of the month shows that there are currently more than 900 people in Jinshan Port, more than 3,000 acres of farmland, 300 tons of wheat and more than 400 tons of potatoes; There are less than 1,100 people in Gushan Port, and the amount of grain is only less than 200 tons more than that of Jinshan Port. Now we are going to transport 7,000 people this time, and there will be one or even two groups of people in the future, and I don't know if there is enough food to eat, but I will hold on until May. ”

"It should be enough, the next one or two groups of people are not passed at one time, and if the time is staggered, you can consume less food. And in May, the wheat in the Jinshan Port can be harvested again, and with the area reclaimed there, it is not a problem to feed tens of thousands of people. Because one season of wheat and one season of potatoes can be grown there a year, the annual grain production is much stronger than that of Heishui. If it really doesn't work, fishing boats are also being built over there, and when the time comes, you can catch some fish and shrimp in the offshore water, and then transfer one or two boats of grain from Xinhuaxia to the past, which is not a big problem. Li Yi said after thinking about it.

"Well, that's fine." Mo Ming also sighed, and then said: "If the voyage goes smoothly and the ship is in good condition, you can try to make three round trips this year, and strive to transport 20,000 people over." Now the new Huaxia to Australia section has added a special ship for immigrants, a flute-type transport ship, and the new Huaxia to the mainland section has added a 'Scud' class large flying clippers, the entire investment in the migration transport of various types of ships has reached 19, the capacity has increased a lot compared with the past, you can try to transport more people. (To be continued......)